Day 237, Year 11: Not a Banner Day
Date: Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 81 degrees F
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA
Saying this was not a banner day is the positive way of saying this day was a real bummer. We were anxious and excited to see our new apartment, so after a long day in Boston we arrived back in Falmouth and went straight to the apartment. We understood it would be ready to move into today, but it is far from it. Walls have been painted, but in one of the bathrooms there was more splattered paint on the floor than on the walls. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating. The beautiful cream-colored carpet in the master bedroom has been replaced by a dismal brown carpet that we will we have to cover with lighter colored area rugs in order to tolerate it. The tile floors in the kitchen, bathrooms, and living room haven’t even been swept, and on and on. We understood that the apartment would be painted, the carpets would be shampooed, and that a general cleaning would have been done. Walls are painted, carpet has not been shampooed, but has been replaced with something we can’t tolerate, and no general cleaning at all has been done. Tomorrow I’ll start the cleaning process and see how far I get. Another disappointment is that we discovered that we are just not strong enough to get the new bed frame we bought at IKEA today out of the van and into the apartment until we have crew on Saturday. It took all of our strength to just get the boxed frame and under-the-bed drawers off the shelves and into the van. We had hoped to get that bed assembled tomorrow, so that when Sears delivers the mattress set on Friday it could be put in place. Sears will just have to lean the mattress set against the wall until we can get the bed in place. Obviously things are going to go more slowly than we had hoped. Mark and I have always been so self-sufficient. Now, not being able to do much of anything in the way of moving stuff without help is really tough. This getting old thing just sucks!
Add to the frustrations with the apartment, a new diet recommended by Dr. Kwak today. Mark has been having all sorts of gut issues that just keep getting worse, so Dr. Kwak recommended the FODMAP diet. FODMAP is an acronym for Fermentable Oligo-Di-Monosaccharides and Polyols. These are short chain carbohydrates (oligosaccharides), disaccharides, monosaccharides and related alcohols that are poorly absorbed in the small intestines and need to be eliminated from the diet. Dr. Kwak is hoping that by changing Mark’s diet, his gut will settle down and he might be able to gain some weight back. But this means eliminating onions and garlic totally from his diet, eliminating all dried beans except for a small amount of chick peas and lentils, and going totally wheat and dairy-free. Since a bulk of our diet consists of beans with lots of onions and garlic, we will start by eliminating those items. At the same time we’ll limit wheat and dairy and eventually eliminate those completely if needed. It is just so hard to focus on diet while in the middle of a move. But obviously getting settled in this new apartment is going to take much more effort and more time than we had hoped. The timing is horrible as school is out next week and I start keeping the boys three days a week. Sure wish we could have made this move the first of June. But that wasn’t possible. So now I’ve just got to take a deep breath and carry on.
When we did get home tonight, we gathered the boys from the Keefe’s next door who had fed them dinner. In addition to everything else she does, Heather is Co-President of the PTO and tonight was 4th grade graduation. She had to be there for set-up and clean-up. So Mark and I asked the boys to get ready for bed and then settle into pre-bedtime reading. I asked Ollie what he was going to wear to bed and he paused and then replied, “My birthday suit.” And he did. At least that made me smile after such a bummer of a day. Kids are great!
